BREAKING: MI Supreme Court REJECTS Trump Ballot Ban

This is breaking news. The Michigan Supreme Court rejects President Trump's ballot ban, and we're filing today at the U.S. Supreme Court on Colorado.

Hey, everybody. Hope you had a great Christmas. We had a busy one, and that was that we, our team, worked right through the holidays to get filed before the Supreme Court of the United States. Let me put it up on the screen for you. This is the petition for writ of certiorari in the Colorado Republican State Central Committee. That's the state GOP versus Norma Anderson.

She's the Secretary of State. That litigation is now at the Supreme Court of the United States. In fact, what you're seeing on the screen has actually been printed. It looks like this. It's a very formal process you have to get into, so it ends up looking like this. And for those that are watching on radio or listening on radio, it's about 150 pages of bound material, reads like a book, looks like a book. It's called a petition for writ of certiorari.

That is now done at the printers, being filed now. So the case will be officially docketed, Logan, this afternoon, which I believe, without a question, that this case is going to be heard by the Supreme Court. Yeah, I think a lot of people saw the news come up over the weekend. They maybe don't know the full scope and the details, so I think it's something we should break down a little more of what happened and why we're involved. So we represent 15 state GOPs around the country where you've had these ballot challenges. And when I say ballot challenge, various groups or individuals will file a lawsuit against either the Board of Elections or the Secretary of State saying we don't want Trump on the ballot because there was an insurrection and he caused it. And they're utilizing the 14th Amendment Section 3's insurrection clause. The problem is, of course, the former President's never been charged with insurrection.

The only time the insurrection issue was adjudicated was at the United States Senate during the impeachment proceedings where he was acquitted of that charge. So, but the Colorado Supreme Court said, yeah, you know, a trial judge in Denver can decide that he committed an insurrection in Washington, D.C. and remove him from the ballot. So the Colorado Supreme Court said he's off the ballot. We had what they said in the opinion was if you file by January 4th, which we're filing today, then they will allow him to stay on the ballot until the Supreme Court rules. We're also going to be filing a motion for expedited review. So it's complicated.

We're going to get more into it. But it is the most important case we have, because fundamentally it's the right to vote. Everybody's right to vote, whether you're for Trump or against them, really doesn't matter. It's your right to vote. Absolutely. And if you lose your right to vote, we literally lose our constitutional republic.

It's that dire. Well, you know, somebody asked me over the weekend, a friend of mine who's looked at the brief petition for us, former Supreme Court clerk, and we've done a couple of cases, a number of cases together. And he said, you know, if you list this in the most of the cases you've handled in your career, where would you put this one? He said, I said, I think it's probably the most important case we've ever handled. And he said, more important than Mergens.

I said, there'd be no Mergens if you don't have the constitutional republic. All right, folks, we've got something very special to announce. We've never done this before. Our faith and freedom year-end drive, remember, was a match. Whatever you donate, it'll be matched.

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You can see on your screen right now, you can scan that QR code. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast and we are taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. So a couple of things have happened today. The Michigan Supreme Court decided not to take the case coming out of Michigan, which leaves the court of appeals decision in place, which we were successful and we won. So that case is in the victory column. Contrast that with what happened in Colorado at the end of last week, which is Colorado said, no, you lose. Trump comes off the ballot, to which if you file a petition for review by the Supreme Court before January 4th, we will let you stay on the ballot until the court rules, kind of an administrative stay.

Here's what's happened. We filed today. I mean, up on the screen is a petition for certiorari. That's what we filed.

That's what it's called. Petition for certiorari is asking the court to hear the case. We finished this last night.

And like I said, our team worked right through the, really right through the weekend. When you look at a petition for certiorari, so everybody understands, Logan, I think I need to walk people through this. I think to understand what we're actually asking.

Absolutely. I think a lot of people know the terms you're throwing out there just at the top of their head. Petition for certiorari is a request for review. That means court, we need you to hear this case because literally havoc could develop here. So what we've said is you do a thing called questions presented.

This is where you put out there the questions the court needs to address. So what we said was the Supreme Court of Colorado held that states possess authority regardless of the lack of congressional authorization. And that's because Congress should be deciding this, not these states, to determine that a Presidential candidate is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That's called the Disqualification Clause. And it says if you're, you know, if you're found guilty of insurrection, you're disqualified from running.

But we have three questions. First is whether the President falls within the list of officials subject to the disqualification of the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. And that's because the President is not an officer of the United States. He is a branch of government unto himself. He appoints the officers of the United States with the advice and consent of Congress. He is not an officer of the United States.

That's right. And that is the critical question and point because they're trying to get President Trump off the ballot under this 14th Amendment, the Section 3. And if he is not an officer, then this does not apply to him, period. And all of these cases should be thrown out.

Yes. And you don't even get into the second issue. And the second issue is whether the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which is the one that says, again, disqualified if you're engaged in insurrection, is self-executing. And what that means is the 14th Amendment says that here are these rules, you know, you've got all these due process, equal protection, and Congress will pass laws so that you can enforce the 14th Amendment. Well, they didn't pass laws regarding insurrection.

There was initially something and then it expired, I think in the 1920s, and it never came up again. Now, there is a criminal statute on insurrection, but President Trump was never charged with insurrection. So to have a state court decide that you can remove somebody without a determination at the federal level that there's been an insurrection by this individual candidate is outrageous in my view. And we make a very strong statement about that.

But, Logan, I can tell you we've got a question. Well, no, I think it's a question to really ask the audience as we try to get some calls and people commenting is do you think this ends up hurting or helping President Trump's campaign? We've seen it now. We've seen it now backfire. We've seen the indictments backfire. We've seen impeachment backfire. We've seen all these things happen where they think it's some sort of death blow, but it ends up bringing and rallying more people around it.

I think if you didn't have this, you probably have a much more competitive field. We even saw Ron DeSantis essentially say that, which is the indictments created a show which essentially gave him the airtime to prove his point of why he should be the nominee. So when you have that situation, my question is to those who are listening right now is do you think inevitably this ends up helping President Trump? Obviously, it is not fun to go through. I think we need to make sure people understand that these cases are not fun. As much as President Trump can go out and make a show out of it, it's still not a fun thing to be a part of.

Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110 or get your comment in on Rumble or YouTube or Facebook or however you're watching. It's important to note, we point this out in the reason for granting the writ and I want to read this because this gives you the history here and it's not long, but it kind of makes the point. For the first time in American history, a former President has been disqualified from a ballot, a political party has been denied the opportunity to put forward the Presidential candidate of its choice, and the voters have been denied the ability to choose their chief executive through the electoral process. This unprecedented decision urgently merits this court's review to prevent, quote, the potential chaos wrought by an imprudent, unconstitutional, and standard-less system in which each state gets to decide and to adjudicate Section 3 disqualification cases on an ad hoc basis. Surely, this enlargement of state power is antithetical to the framers' intent. That was by Justice Samora of the Colorado Supreme Court, who was appointed by a Democrat.

And that's what he said. And the risk you have here is this can impact all 50 states. We're already seeing that. There's 15 cases of litigation and then Maine is talking about doing something. California's lieutenant governor, I think Gavin Newsom said, I think it's ridiculous.

Yeah, Newsom said it's not going to do it. But the lieutenant governor said he wanted action here. Yeah, and that is the concern. So, you know, if Colorado, they're saying the Supreme Court has to decide on it, and they do because this is setting precedent for other states that want to remove President Trump from the ballot. And it's literally a secretary of state gets to decide, hmm, I don't think this person is qualified. So you have one person who can decide this person is not qualified to run as President.

Here's another interesting dynamic on all of this, though. And this is what, you know, so under the normal procedure, okay, if this was a normal Supreme Court case, Logan, like you used to go to watch me do, and hopefully the grandkids will watch me do very soon here. You'd file this thing now, okay? They would have 30 days to respond, which would put you at the end of January. Then we would have another 14 days to get in a reply brief that puts you in, you know, the middle of February. Then they would take it to conference in March. Then if they granted review, you have 90 days to get your brief in, which puts you in June. Then the term is over.

So they would hear argument in October, and the election is in November. So we're filing tomorrow. I'll get more into it tomorrow. I'm trying to go through the procedural stuff one at a time.

There's a lot that you want. We're filing a motion to expedite review as well, because you can't let this go this long. I mean, and it is fundamentally, folks, your right to vote. I don't care which candidate you're for. It's your right to vote. That's what's at stake here, and that's what's so critical about all of this. We've got calls coming.

I think we should... We do. We can go ahead. Let's take Aaron who's calling in California on Line 1. Aaron, welcome. Hi, Aaron.

Hey, thank you for having me. Sure. So I have a concern. My big concern is that people just do things, and they'll circumvent the law regardless, right? That's why we have criminal statutes, because people just violate the law. My question is, what happens if, say, Colorado, they get shot down at the Supreme Court level, and then just regardless decide to strike his name?

They just print the ballots, and it's not there. Then they say, well, sue me. And you would, and you'd get an emergency injunction, and you go to federal court for this. You don't go to the state court system, because now they're interfering with a federal election. You go to the federal system.

You file an injunction at the trial court. You get expedited review. When I'm talking about expedited review there, Aaron, I'm talking about hours, not days. And then to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, hours, not days. This could all happen on the same day. I've done a case where the injunction was issued, it was challenged, and was all decided in a day at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and then went to the Supreme Court. We said search should be denied. It was denied, I think, 36 hours later. You can move very quickly if they were to decide to do something like that. Yeah, and I think that would be a very bold move on a state's part, because, again, this is talking about whether you're Republican or Democrat.

This has very long-term implications if one person can decide not to put someone on a ballot. We have a lot of people watching this broadcast right now. I mean, there's tens of thousands of you listening. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of you watching right now. If you're on Rumble, Facebook, YouTube, or X, Twitter, share it with your friends.

Subscribe, of course, as well. There's a lot of you watching this. Let me tell you what we've got here. We've got a year-end that is just days away, and we were able to free up additional matching funds. The first time we've ever done this is a triple match, but it's just for these next five days or four days. What's left of the money? I guess five days.

Just a couple broadcast days. Yeah, here's how it works. If you donate $10, that's equivalent now of $30. $30 is the equivalent of $90. $90 is the equivalent of $270. If someone donates $1,000, it's $3,000. If somebody donates $3,000, it's $9,000.

It's a triple match. We were able to do that because of the generosity of our donors. We're doing that also because, folks, this is a crunch, as you can imagine. We've got this case at the Supreme Court. We've got two others we're dealing with, and we've got a whole team in our D.C. offices and our European offices dealing with the Israel matter, which we'll get into later in the broadcast. So we've never done this before.

It's the first time we've ever done it, but we've got a triple match. So I want to encourage you today to donate, to support the work of the ACLJ. We said this is a judicial emergency. We need you to stand with us.

We're in the final five days of our faith and freedom year in drive. It sets our budget for the next year, but it'll also help us get through the Supreme Court case. And like I said, now we've got the biggest Supreme Court case in our history, right here at the end of the year, because there'll be a ditch. We've got one set of brief filed. There's going to be multiple more.

So, I mean, the work does not stop. The case is so vitally important that a group of our donors has unlocked a triple match, and this is a first for the ACLJ. Today, every gift you give online, as I said, will be tripled. Defend our constitutional republic. Please give as generously as you can at ACLJ.org.

I said, this is the first time we've done in our history a triple match. You can report for duty, as our donors have been saying, which we appreciate it, especially our ACLJ champions, and have your gift tripled. And by the way, if you join today and donate and you can make a monthly gift, you become an ACLJ champion. And we are at 18,000, almost 300, probably at 18,300 now, 200 away from our goal to end the year with 18,500 ACLJ champions. Those are people who donate each and every month.

You can do that at ACLJ.org, one-time gift as well. We'll be back with more, including your phone calls, at 800-684-3110. Welcome back to Secula.

We are going to continue to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110 coming off of Christmas. I know a lot of you have a lot of questions about the specifics that were coming out of the Supreme Court, of all these states that are all trying to decide whether President Trump should or should not be allowed on the ballot. You even had, you said, the Lieutenant Governor of California pushing Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom said, that's not how we do this. He actually, to his credit, said that's not really how democracy works.

What you hope is a lot of people have some form of sanity like that, but it's clear that that's not going to be the case overall. Was that the case in Colorado? Because the Colorado Supreme Court has struck President Trump from the ballot, although they're letting him stay on pending an appeal to the Supreme Court. And again, if you're just joining us, we'll put on the screen the petition for certiorari that we have filed on behalf of the Colorado GOP today.

Let's go ahead and put that up on the screen. It's on people's minds. A lot of people are thinking about it. I was at one of the theme parks in Orlando, Florida, and I was there, and when this all broke, and you could just all of a sudden hear pockets of people start talking about Colorado. Like, it just started happening. Like, you'd kind of turn over there, you'd see someone say, oh, you see what's going on in Colorado? Over here you go, what's happening in Colorado?

You see what's going on with Trump? It was on people's minds, because everyone started getting push notifications and alerts, and we haven't really been able to talk about it. Obviously, our people know that we are involved, but they see it as, okay, what's going on? Yeah, because people don't know what a petition for certiorari even is. Let's go ahead and put that up on the screen. This is what we filed. That's the formal request asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. We're also going to be filing a motion to expedite this.

But what people need to understand, we'll take calls in a minute here at 800-684-3110. This is fundamentally your right to vote, because if the states can just knock somebody off the ballot, violating the First Amendment rights of the political parties and your right to vote, that is an unbelievably dangerous precedent. That's right. You don't even get to vote for the candidate of your choice, because your candidate, because one person, one secretary of state decides, I don't think this person is qualified to be on the ballot. You don't get to vote for your candidate, and that is very dangerous. You know, some of these states don't even think you have to have a judicial process.

They think what Cece said is absolutely fine, that the secretary of state or the board of election supervisors can say, nah, we're not going to have this person on. The Supreme Court has to take these cases. Let's go to Bill in California online. We've got a question specifically related to this.

I heard this come up also a lot. Bill, you're on the air. Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, what's to stop us from writing ballots? I can't, isn't that still possible? You could write in, but if he's disqualified, they will not count it. So what we have to do, Bill, is win this case at the Supreme Court of the United States.

That is the only option in Colorado right now. They'll put a stay in place as long as it's pending in the Supreme Court, but the Super Tuesday is what, March, is it March 5th or 15th? March 5th. I have to be here before we know it. And if the Supreme Court were to deny review, Trump's off in, I'll tell you what will happen. Trump's off in Colorado. There will be a cascade of states that remove him from the ballot if the Supreme Court lets us sit. So I'm telling my friends at the Supreme Court, who I've appeared before for the last 40 years, they have to take this case. We are filing. President Trump will be filing. We represent the state party. Their rights have been infringed. President Trump has a lawyer that's going to be filing also at the Supreme Court. So you'll have these petitions for search rights up on the screen right now.

That's the booklet, about 150 pages, of what we've compiled. And now think about this. Since late last week, our teams worked right through the holidays, took a little bit of time off on Christmas.

And the night of Christmas, we were back on it. And that document's literally being filed at the Supreme Court as we speak. And later today, I'm going to follow this up with what's called a motion to expedite.

Because if you look at it procedurally timing-wise, you could have a problem here where if the Supreme Court doesn't do anything, other courts are going to start taking action. Absolutely. And that's why, you know, you made a good point. Our liberties don't take a break for Christmas. Right.

And so we had to work all the way through Christmas so that we could get these filed. And exactly what you are saying is the case. If the Supreme Court does not take this and Colorado is able to just say, hey, Trump's not on the ballot, there are going to be tons of states that will try and follow suit and take Trump off the ballot. And like you said earlier, I think some of these states think they can do this on their own.

Absolutely. The Secretary of State can just decide he's not qualified. He started an insurrection.

He's disqualified, even though never charged with an insurrection. By the way, they had a special counsel. Before the special counsel, there was an assistant U.S. attorney reviewing all of this. Then Jack Smith, he reviewed all of this. And you know what he wasn't charged with Trump or anybody else?

Insurrection. So doesn't that tell you something? But the Colorado Supreme Court said, oh, no, we're still taking him off the ballot because he's a judicial, firstly, he's not even an officer of the United States.

So it doesn't even apply. But this is what we have to convince the Supreme Court. You want to grab a call? Sure. Let's go to Dee in California, line three. You're on the air. Hey, Dee.

Yes. Something I thought my father as a minister used to say and ask of his congregation whenever he would start with a different congregation could be applied here. You'd ask them to pray for it to do three things. And I think playing hit what he said, maybe to pray for you, ACLJ and your staff and families.

Second thing to ask of people is to pray for the attorneys and all that are working in the courtroom with these. Third, pray for everybody in the world and nation as a whole. And God will take care of the rest. Well, I appreciate that. And I appreciate people that I know a lot of people are praying. We appreciate that. And I appreciate your support. Thank you, Dee, for calling.

We're going to take more calls in the second half hour at 800-684-3110. At the same time, the Michigan Supreme Court said, we're not going to hear the case. The Court of Appeals decision stands. That decision allowed President Trump to stay on the ballot. So the courts are split right now. There are some of these states, Logan, as you said, in California, the lieutenant governor said take him off the ballot. Gavin Newsom to his credit said, not only not so fast, he said that's not the way we do it in a constitutional republic. But that does point to that this case fundamentally, like I said, a friend of mine asked me this weekend, you've been doing this for 40 years, of all the cases you've had, the Bible study cases, the pro-life cases, what's the most important case?

Where does this rank? Well, this is the number one case, assuming they grant review. And it's the number one case because if we have no right to vote, we have no constitutional republic. If we have no constitutional republic, we have no rights.

And if they could just willy-nilly take somebody off a ballot because they decide, well, what does that say for the constitutional republic where we the people are supposed to be engaging this? Not a lot. So this becomes and is the most important case that we've ever had. And it's moving at a record speed. In the next segment of the next half hour, I'll get into what that means. And tomorrow, I'll really explain the procedures.

I just want to let everybody know the landscape. So we are at the Supreme Court right now. And this, folks, is where you come in. We've got, for the first time in our ACLJ history, a triple match. We are filing our most important appeal to the Supreme Court ever. That has been filed.

If we lose our right to vote, as I said, we lose our constitutional republic. So we've declared this for us as a judicial emergency. That has allowed us to release additional funds for the match, which means now we can triple match. So if someone donates $10, it's $30. $30 is $90.

$90 is $270. We're also in the final five days of our faith and freedom year in drive. These are the most important five days of our year, and it sets our budgets for next year. And as I said, we did not expect to have this case at the Supreme Court at the end of the year. I thought the Colorado Supreme Court could have done this, but I thought they were going to wait until after the primaries.

Nope. They decided to do this in a very consolidated basis. So this case is vitally important. As I said, our donors have unlocked an additional source of funds, so we've got a triple match coming. A number of $5,000 gifts came in yesterday, and those were doubled.

Today they would be tripled. So we want you to defend our constitutional republic. I want you to send us to the Supreme Court. If you go to ACLJ.org and donate online, any amount you donate is going to be tripled.

As I said, we've never been able to do that. We are doing that today at ACLJ.org. And if you can donate every month, you become an ACLJ champion, and you report for duty. And that allows us to budget and plan for the next year.

So do that at ACLJ.org if you can. We are just 200 away from our goal of 18,500 ACLJ champions. By the way, next year I want to be announcing, Logan, that we've got 30,000.

So that's going to be our goal for next year, basically at 1,000 a month. ACLJ.org, back with another half hour in just a moment. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow. Hey everybody, welcome to the broadcast. I need to set, Logan said set this up again.

Is that what you want me to do? Yeah, I think so. A lot of people just joined us. And you said when you were in Florida last week, people were really talking about this. Oh, when it broke, again, I was at one of the theme parks, and you could just hear pockets of people all start talking about it.

Which meant people were following it, and they were getting the pushes on their phones, so the questions started to go up. And even some of, you know, people who were, again, are definitely more liberal leaning were like, well, they can't do that. That seems like a bit much. Well, even the left, the professors left of center have said, wait a minute. Not all of them. Of course, some think that it's fine. There's some conservatives that think this is fine, too.

It's not fine. And what we're talking about not being fine is having a state secretary of state bounce a Presidential candidate, the leading Presidential candidate in this case, off of a ballot. Because they decided with a local court in Colorado that that person was engaged in insurrection, yet the person charged, former President Trump, has never been charged with insurrection. So you're talking about taking the law into your own hands. But we think this case is against Donald Trump, and it is, but as Cece pointed out earlier, it is really against all of us because the right to vote is sacred.

And if you cannot have the right to vote for the candidate of your choice, whoever that candidate is, well, then what do you have left of a constitutional republic? So when people say, is this an important case? Yeah, like the most important. The fundamental issue is your right to vote.

It happens to be Donald Trump, but tomorrow it could be next time it could be somebody else. Absolutely. And that's what people need to understand. It cannot be one secretary of state in some state that gets to decide, this candidate's not qualified to be on the ballot. That takes my right to vote away from me.

And Logan, they think they can do that. That's the thing that's so odd here. This judge thought she could do it. Yeah. And I feel like they never think about the ramifications of then, you know, when the tide turns, all of a sudden it's like impeachment right now, whether you agree that President Biden should be being impeached or not. It's now a topic of conversation. If this was pre-Trump, this would not be a topic of conversation.

No one would have been doing it. So now guess what's going to happen in four years, whatever it will be, this could swap and happen to them and they're going to be crying foul. Oh, we said that in the brief. I said, you know, today it's President Trump in Colorado. Well, let's say the people in Texas say, well, I can't believe that Joe Biden has not secured our border.

We've got a mess down there. That is the equivalent of an insurrection that he's allowing and we're going to take him off the ballot. Would that be right?

No. But that's what, this is where you're right. They don't think through the ramifications. We sent in our petition for review to the Supreme Court today. For the first time in American history, a former President has been disqualified from a ballot, a political party has been denied the opportunity to put forward the Presidential candidate of its choice, and the voters have denied the ability to choose their chief executive through the electoral process. That's how important this case is to the way in which we govern. Fundamentally, it's a case of governance here. There's a lot of technical issues. In the days ahead, I'm going to go through so you understand the 14th Amendment, Section 3.

Today, I wanted to kind of set the parameter of what's happening. And then in Michigan, the Supreme Court said, you know what, we're letting the Court of Appeals decision stand, which Trump stays on the ballot. So now you've got these two courts going in different directions and you've got 15 other cases. So this, if the Supreme Court doesn't grab this case quickly, it's havoc. Total constitutional havoc is going to be the end result of this.

Absolutely. We've got, look, we've got a long show coming up. We still have a good number of time. So we're taking your calls, 1-800-684-3110. A lot of you on hold right now. We've only got a minute and a half in this segment. When we get back, though, we'll take some more calls. We'll also have some guests coming on. But we are at the end of our Faith and Freedom year-end drive, and we really could use your support right now. So right now, all donations are tripled. That's right.

For the first time ever, they are matched times three. So you can be a part of that right now. But I do encourage you to call us, 1-800-684-3110. Lines are jammed right now.

So you're going to be waiting on hold for a little bit, but we'll do our best to get to you, especially this holiday season. It's actually very nice to see how many of you are engaged coming back. I think that has been the change in social media, the change in the way we're able to get ourselves out there.

Because unlike maybe traditional radio, where this would be a slow week, where people aren't on, your main hosts are taking a break. We're here live. We're talking directly to you, whether you're watching on your computer or on your phone or wherever you are.

I've got to say, YouTube and Rumble, gigantic. A lot of people, thousands and thousands and thousands. People are going to be off work. They've got to sit around. They've got to watch us. So we appreciate it, though, and know that all that support, the financial support you give during this tripled match during the Faith and Freedom Year in Drive, a lot of that goes back to the media operation as well. It keeps us broadcast on the air, too. Will, did we ever get a number from where we are?

Go ahead and tell me. We'll have it after the break. After the break, we're updating our champions. We're trying to get to 18,500.

We were about 200 shy. Those are people that donate each month. You can do that at ACLJ.org, and whatever you donate this month for the next few days is going to be tripled at ACLJ.org. We encourage you to do that today. Send us to the Supreme Court back with more, including your calls, in a minute.

Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take a lot of your calls coming up in this segment, so stay on hold if you're there. Also, on Thursday, you and I are hosting the Sean Hannity radio broadcast. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, yep. Tomorrow is Thursday. It is. This week is an interesting week because we're off Monday and Tuesday, so now we're back.

Well, sort of. I was off. Well, we're off air. Off the air.

Off air, just playing reruns. We'll be back, though, and we'll be doing Hannity radio tomorrow. Tomorrow, which segues into you and Sean exactly producing the movie, which has gotten great reviews.

That's right. We do a Christmas movie. It's out. It's actually, you know, you can watch it at any time. It's not necessarily only a Christmas movie.

It takes place at Christmastime, but it's called Jingle Smells. We've been talking about it for the last couple months. Any of this is kind of our last big push. You'll hear about it for this week, until next year, so we want to make sure that if you have the opportunity, you're still hanging out with your family. We know thousands of you are watching right now. It's the number one Christmas movie that doesn't have any sort of Hollywood agenda. There's a great cast. It's a Christmas comedy with a lot of the messaging from this broadcast.

If you like what we're talking about here, you're going to like it, and a lot of fun. Again, it's available at jinglesmells.movie. It's a family movie. It's not something necessarily made for kids. But kids will love it.

But kids will like it. Family, you can sit around and watch it. Nothing really objectional in it other than just a good, funny time, so go watch it. CC's family watched it.

Absolutely. We loved it. It was a good movie. We do that every Christmas. We try to watch great movies, and that is one to add to our list. Thank you. I heard a lot from a lot of people over Christmas who were waiting, and they watched it, and I appreciate everyone who did.

So if you did watch it already, I want to say thank you as well. Because that also supports the work of the ACLJ, because we are at a time where we are trying to figure out how you can influence culture, not just in the courtroom. And there are ways you can do that, and some of that may be, hey, what's something that's not expected? We start our feature film process with a Christmas comedy. That's not necessarily exactly... A little out of the box. But that's what you have to do to reach people, to reach new people, people that won't hear your message.

You have to figure out ways to do that, and that's what we do. So where do people need to go to check it out? Just go to jinglesmells.movie. It's available on demand on Rumble and on Vudu, V-U-D-U. It's available. Both of those are available on most smart TVs or devices.

And then DVDs are still available as well. All you got to do is go through jinglesmells.movie. You'll see the three options. You can pick one or the other, and we appreciate it. All right, we're going to go right to the phones, as we said we would. 800-684-3110. Let's go. Let's go to Bruce in Colorado, line one. Yeah, Bruce in Colorado, the state. Go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking my call, Jay. Hey, I'm wondering if there isn't another motive at the root of this accusations without due process matter. You know, as it's unfolding, and that is, you know, if you look back at when Judge Roy Moore in Alabama ran for Senate, and they made all this hype and accusations.

I mean, you know the details. Yeah, but you know what the difference was? He was allowed to be on the ballot. They're trying to get Trump off the ballot.

There's one thing, people making accusations. This is taking the candidate off the ballot, and the primary decision on who is on the ballot is made by the Colorado GOP and the people that vote in the GOP's primary. That's the problem here. That's the move they're making, is to deactivate your right to vote. Absolutely, not just try to influence who you vote for, but not even giving you the option to vote for President Trump. And I'll tell you something else it does. It does cast a shadow.

Now, Logan said, does this help or hurt? These things tend to, I think, it just makes him more popular. But it does cast a shadow over the entire process in Colorado.

Because you start thinking to yourself, do I even want to go to this? Is my vote going to count? If I vote for President Trump, then he's disqualified.

Well then, have I wasted a vote? So that's why Supreme Court, you really need to grab this quickly. And we got it to you in record time, like today. I mean, this happened last, what was it, Wednesday or Thursday? And we got it to you on the day after Christmas. What do you think the likelihood is of it going quickly?

Under a normal situation, 100%. I can't see how they let this sit. It's havoc. You see courts are going in different directions.

Some states think they can do this on their own. Take another call. Alright, Patty and Marilyn on Line 4, you're on the air. Hey Patty.

Yes, hello. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Just wanted to let you know, thank you, that I've become a triple donor just now. Thank you very much.

And a monthly donor. Great. And I wanted to thank you for being our champion. Well that's very kind.

I appreciate you saying that. And by the way, Will pointed this out, if you donate today and you happen to become a champion, your donation today is tripled. It won't be tripled every month. We can't do that.

But you know what? When we're in matching challenge months, it will automatically be matched. So that's another reason why becoming an ACLJ champion is so critical. By the way, we just found out that the plaintiff in the West Virginia case that we won last week has appealed now to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Can you explain what that case is? I don't think they have any idea.

Alright, same thing. Disqualifying Trump from the ballot. He lost. We won in the West Virginia federal court. It was the first federal court judge to rule. So now the case goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. So we'll have to file a brief in that case. I'm sure that's going to be on an expedited basis too if he so moves. So, and I'm sure he will. So that's what I'm saying. When you ask should the Supreme Court, I think the Supreme Court sees he has to take it.

They do. Because this is total chaos. Too many states are watching and they are going to follow suit. So if they think a Secretary of State in Colorado can just say, I don't think Trump should be on the ballot. I'm taking him off. All the other liberal states will follow suit and he will be taken off the ballot. And really, our constitutional republic cannot stand that. We cannot survive through that. No. Alright, let's continue on.

Try to get a couple more. Let's go to Julie who's calling in California line 5. Hey Julie. Hi Jay and Logan. I have two questions about the case.

Well, one about you. I can't think of how many times the ACLJ's were working over Christmas and Thanksgiving and New Year's while the rest of us were on vacation. My first question is that the ACLJ weren't there. Is there any other organization in our country that would be fighting for these kinds of things? Look, I mean, there are a lot of great organizations out there. So, you know, we have a lot of friends in a lot of different organizations. They do great work. So I don't want to take too much credit. They just happen to be, we got involved in these cases.

We saw early on that these cases were important. Let me tell you a little Christmas story. This is not the first time we've had this happen. Years ago, I think this was probably in the early 2000s or maybe in the late 90s, literally on Christmas Eve.

I don't know if you remember this Logan. On Christmas Eve, we got a call from the Supreme Court saying they wanted a brief, a supplemental brief filed between Christmas and New Year's. And they told us the day before we did not answer our phones because our office was closed. And we only found out about it when we came back. So we had 24 hours to get the briefing or maybe 48. So we learned that lesson.

Now it's all done by email, of course. So thank goodness. So this is like you said, Julie said, this is not the first time that happened. So I appreciate it. Julie, you have one more question? Yeah. Do you think the Supreme Court will answer all three items in your submission to them?

It's interesting. If they decide that the President is not an officer of the United States, they don't have to answer anything else because then he's not subject to 14th Amendment Section 3. And I think that's the threshold question. Now, I think it was an egregious error that they said that the 14th Amendment was self-executing. In other words, you don't have to have enabling legislation by Congress to remove somebody for insurrection.

So I think that's a big problem, too. But the first issue is, is the President an officer of the United States? And in our view, he's not. In the view of most courts, they've said he's not. Legal scholars are a little bit split on that.

I think the Supreme, I think we win that at the Supreme Court, maybe unanimously. You want to try to grab another one, Rob? Yeah, we'll try. Let's go to Annabelle in California. Hi, Annabelle. Hi, Jay and Jordan.

Champion reporting for Judy. I was in the emergency room Christmas Eve. I thought this is a perfect metaphor for what we're all experiencing.

One woman broke her finger, another man had a heart failure. What we all had in common, we were seeking doctors to attend to our needs lest they worsen. This country, I believe, is in an emergency.

You've said it, Jay. But we are being attacked in the legal realm. We need brilliant and dedicated attorneys for what ails us. The Bible says put on the whole armor of God, and we must do that daily.

But the natural world, we require lawyers. No one goes to battle without armor. Let's make sure the ACLJ has the armor it needs through our giving to fight for us. Please, please, please join our family of supporters. Have the peace of mind to face the New Year boldly, knowing we have protection. May God bless all who fight for faith and freedom. Annabelle, we really appreciate that. And you know, this is a legal attack like I've never seen on the electoral process.

We've said in the history of the United States, this has never happened. So in that sense, this is very much unprecedented. I really appreciate you saying that. It's very kind. And I need to say this to our donors at the ACLJ who have responded, Logan, unbelievably, right through Christmas, including Christmas Day. Absolutely. We're seeing a lot of comments coming in right now.

A lot of people just said they became champions or donated today during this triple match. So we are filing, we have filed our most important petition for review at the Supreme Court in our history. And that's because if we lose our right to vote, we lose our constitutional republic. And as I told you, we've been really working through the holidays on this. And Annabelle said we declared this a judicial emergency and we need you to stand with us. We're in the final five days of our faith and freedom drive. It sets our budget for next year and also helps us when we have a crunch.

And that's where the champions are so helpful. We know every month you're there. These crunches, like the Israel matter where we've got teams of lawyers dedicated to that. We'll talk to Mike Pompeo about that coming up after the break, but also at the Supreme Court of the United States. This case is so vitally important to us that a group of our donors has unlocked an additional match, a triple match.

We've never had this happen. So today, every gift you give online will be tripled. That means if you donate $10, it's $30. $30 is $90.

$90 is $270. $5,000 gift becomes $15,000. And we had a number of those yesterday and we really appreciate that. Defend our constitutional republic.

This is your right to vote, folks, that's at risk here. So please give as generously as you can. We've got five days left. If you can donate monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. We are about 200 champions away from our goal. When we started this, we had $15,000 in October. I said I wanted to end the month, the year at $18,500. We're getting very, very close. And then next year, this month, in December of next year, I want to be able to announce that we're at $30,000.

That is the goal for what we want to hit. But right now, if you can support the work of the ACLJ, your gift is tripled. That's ACLJ.org slash Faith in Freedom.

Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. We're joined by former Secretary of State and our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo.

And Mike, we've been talking about the Supreme Court and we filed our petition for surgery. I want to focus on the Middle East situation. Israel took out, and this is something you understand better than most people in the world, an Iranian general with an airstrike in Damascus. He was known as a close associate to Soleimani during the Trump administration, of course, the activity there. How big of a deal is this in the Israel's war with Hamas? Well, Jay, it's important in a couple of respects. The first is he was clearly a senior operational leader who was driving the behavior not only of the Hamas folks, but also of the Hezbollah leaders.

He was a senior fellow running what's called the IRGC, the External Terror Operations around the world. So it's a big deal. But, you know, in the end, they'll replace him.

They'll find someone hopefully not as good and capable. Nonetheless, it's important for Israel to have done this, and I think it's telling for the world to see that that's where that Iranian leader is. He's not in Tehran, he's not in Gaza, but he is in Syria. And I think that tells you a lot about the global effort that the Iranians have to conduct external terror operations against all of us. Yeah, I was with Israeli officials last week in Washington, and it was interesting. They said, you know, the Gaza activities are going to take a while, but one of the Israeli foreign affairs attache said this was very interesting to us.

Sisi was there too. He said, but the situation with the Houthis is going to explode in the next two weeks. And we saw it starting over the weekend.

What's your sense of that one? Yes, it did start. It's been low level for quite a while now, over 100 strikes. Now a dozen plus, if I read the reporting correctly, the attacks on Israel and on U.S. vessels. It's likely to get worse before it gets better.

And the shame of it is, Jay, it doesn't have to be. We could stop it. We know where these folks are. We have intelligence that's incredibly capable. We have the capacity to dominate the airspace and the land in Yemen.

We could impose enormous costs on these Houthis and thereby put it on the Iranian leadership too. But we've chosen to be passive defensive. That is, we declared victory when we don't have a soldier killed and only injured a little bit.

And we stopped a dozen drones from hitting Israel. That's all defensive. That's all passive. That's all back foot.

Nothing that is cost imposing on the adversary. So here's what's interesting. Cece, you were there with these conversations. They really were stressing that this is where the United States, Cece, had to take a big role. Yeah, and not just reacting, but like Secretary Pompeo is saying, we need to start taking proactive actions. And we can do more things to stop this, but we're not.

So Mike, which points me to the next question. Iran promises retaliation, which they always do. They haven't done anything as of yet. Do you think the message, you've got Denmark ships in now, you've got the UK, you've got the United States.

I think 12 countries have naval vessels in the either Red Sea or in the Mediterranean or in the Suez Canal Zone, the Straits of Hormuz, so forth. Do you think Iran is getting the message here or do you think they're going to take some kind of action? Jim, my assessment is that they're going to continue this until they meet steel, until there's some real cost imposed on this. It sounds like we, over the last 48 hours, fired a couple more rockets or missiles into Iraq to go after a group called Khateeb Hezbollah in Iraq who had injured an American. But you can't think for a moment that the decision makers, the senior IRGC officials in the ISOL and President Raisi himself give a darn that we went after Khateeb Hezbollah. And so my fear is until we take actions that actually demonstrate to the Iranians that we're prepared to move up the escalation ladder to deter them, that they will continue this.

And the question is only the rate and the acceleration of their efforts against us and against Israel. We really appreciate you taking time out from holiday season here to be with us and we certainly appreciate you being part of the team. And again, Mike, thanks for everything. Have a happy new year to you and your family. We're going to continue to monitor this situation very, very carefully. Thanks for being with us.

Yes, sir. Folks, I want to take another call, 800-684-3110, and I do want to tell you that we've got teams working on the situation in Israel. As you know, it was reported over the weekend that another five hostages that were found dead.

I suspect, Logan, there's many more. I think the number of hostages alive are probably less than 60 is what I'm hearing now from our colleagues in Israel. Yeah, I mean, it's still a horrible time. We're still working on it though, folks. We don't give up.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's tough. I know during Christmas it's hard to keep your mind focused on what's happening all around the world, but we've got to remember that all of this is still happening. It's still unfolding in real time. One of the brothers that were part of the family delegation in Washington whose brother was killed with that horrible tragedy where they escaped and then there was friendly fire and they lost their brother. Well, their other brother was in the IDF and was killed in Gaza in the conflict. So the pain these families are feeling are unreal.

So just pray for these people and pray for their families because it's unreal. Let's take another phone call. All right, Tracy.

In Texas, on line two, you're on the air. Hey, guys. I'm a champion reporting for duty. We appreciate that. I just wanted to say thank you so much for what y'all do. Every few months I post on Facebook for my Facebook friends to prayerfully consider supporting the ACLJ because y'all are defending our Christian and constitutional rights and y'all stand for life. And I just want to thank you again so much for being my voice as a dedicated Christian American and y'all are just doing amazing work and y'all do what I can.

Well, Tracy, we can do this together. And, you know, it's because of all of you that we get to do this. And that includes, by the way, whether it's the Supreme Court of the United States where we're filed today or this broadcast that you're seeing, as Logan said, live during the week between Christmas and New Year's or the movies that we have or the other content that we put out. All of that is because of your support of the ACLJ.

That's right. I mean, all of it. This entire organization is the backbone of it, not of the backbone. The entire organization is built on support from you all who can't do it without you. You can be a part of it right now.

This is really coming close to the end here of our faith and freedom here in drive. And we have also unlocked a three times match right now, which means if you donate right now, all donations are effectively tripled, which we've never been able to do. But due to the current situations, whether that's the cases you've heard about or what's happening in Israel, a group of amazing donors are ready to unlock even more funds. And we can't do it without your support. So right now, all you got to do is go to ACLJ.org slash faith and freedom or scan the code.

If you're looking right now, you can scan the QR code or go to ACLJ.org. All donations, it's easy, are doubled, not only doubled, tripled. So you say doubled, tripled right now. And if you give a gift online, obviously it's tripled.

But also if you become a champion, it's tripled for this month and any other time that we decide to unlock the matches, it'll be matched. So right now you can support the work continually, regularly becoming an ACLJ champion. Or if you're looking for that one time donation, as we know a lot of people do, I do it. As you start rolling into the end of the year, start looking at what you have to give out for charitable funds or for nonprofits, for people to support. This is when I do it. So I feel that's what a lot of you do it as well. So go to ACLJ.org right now and be a part of this faith and freedom year-end drive.

And if you can become a champion, which essentially means a reoccurring member of the ACLJ, we encourage you to do it. As Logan said, this is the first time we've ever done this, but we've got for the rest of the month, your donations will be tripled. So any amount you donate, you donate $30 is 90, 90 is 270. You understand how that works?

We've never done that before. We're able to do it because we do have a bit of a judicial emergency here with the Supreme Court of the United States. So ACLJ.org. By the way, there's a QR code for those that are watching. All you do is go there and it takes you right to the donation page. So just, you know how to do that.

I don't have to explain that to people. We encourage you to do that or simply go to ACLJ.org. If you become a champion, your gift today will be tripled. And then you also will become a champion standing with us each and every month, which means also when we're in challenges, matching programs, which happens multiple times a year, your gifts will be part of that match. So we encourage you to do that at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org and become part of the team here. We're getting close to our 18,500 champions. I believe we'll get there by the end of the month.